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Document 1

CITIZENSHIP ISSUES CAN CAUSE STRESS ON FAMILIES

The first time Carmen tried to cross the Rio Grande River into the United States she was a newly married 16-year-old. She was the youngest of the dozen or so who were attempting to leave their homeland for a future of uncertainties. Her husband had already made the crossing to get her to the promised land of Texas. “We were crossing through a drainage pipe(1) but were caught,” she remembers of that harrowing night in 1993.

The four women in the group were put up in a hotel, with no food until the next afternoon. When they were released, they waited until dark, this time with the understanding that a few individuals would sacrifice themselves and be caught, the distraction giving the others in the group a chance to disappear quietly into the darkness.

Now 35 and living in northwest Arkansas with her husband and four American-born children, Carmen can still recall the memory of her first crossing. She is not alone. Countless others of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. have similar tales to tell of a risky, if not life-threatening, escape to America. Twenty years later, the stakes remain high(2) for Carmen and her family. She and her husband keep the family afloat(3) doing construction jobs and housekeeping. But the imminent threat of deportation of her husband keeps her awake at night.

“When someone knocks at the door, I am afraid they have come for him. I worry about my children and I want them to stay here where there is food and they can get an

education,” she said.

www.arkansas-rogers.org, Alessia Schaefer, February 21, 2013

(1) a drainage pipe = a pipe to evacuate rain water

(2) the stakes remain high = survival is still difficult

(3) keep the family afloat = support the family financially

Document 2

REJECTING THE AMERICAN DREAM, MEXICANS REINTEGRATE BACK HOME

Mexico City native Nelly Lozano lived what some might consider the American Dream. Lozano had a college education, a high-paying job at Boeing that paid for an “almost brand-new” car and a quiet, comfortable home in Renton(1). Meanwhile, she actually dreamt of returning to Mexico. “What are you doing here?” she asked herself. “Why do you live here if you’re not happy – if you’re not completely happy?” So in 2011, she left.

Thousands of other Mexicans, across classes and ages, education levels and legal statuses take the same plunge(2) each year, opting to return home from the U.S.

“People may think, ‘What are you doing?’ if you move back,” Lozano said. “Like, ‘you’re stupid. You have a good job. You have school for your son.’ All of these good things, right? All of these opportunities.”

“But if you’re not happy,” she said, “and you’re just fulfilling other people’s points of view, then that’s not good.”

About 90 percent of the approximately 1.4 million Mexican immigrants who returned home from the U.S. between 2005 and 2010 did so voluntarily (rather than through deportation). Some found less economic prosperity in the U.S. than they imagined. Others experienced irreparable alienation. Some, like Lozano, say they just missed their families and culture.

She got a job as a sales assistant at Neuronix Medical. It paid less, but she could work less and spend more time with her son.